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Vista Media Center Plus CableCard Equals No TV
notthatwillsmith writes "ATI's internal CableCard readers are finally available, and Maximum PC got hands-on time with a couple of Vista-powered systems built using the FCC-mandated technology. The short version? It doesn't work. From the article: 'The tech told me he'd receive training direct from Microsoft, but none of it covered internal tuners. We both agreed that the process should be the same, since the only difference is that the slots are inside the case, versus in an external box. The tech then proceeds to install the CableCards, connect the tuners to coax line, fire up the PC, and begin the software configuration. This step involves activating the TV Wonder with a product-activation code, and calling the Comcast office to exchange some information. We should have had a picture at this point, but we didn't.'"
The short version? It doesn't work. The long version? It still doesn't work.
Wait, something in Windows ... gasp ... doesnt work!?!
Say it aint so!!
I am betting this has something to do with the massive DRM systems Microsoft built into Vista.
Super Vista Forum
Article detailing how the cable companies are using a device called Cable-CARD to prevent you from recording HD TV shows to your computer. http://www.microsoftisawesome.com/2007/05/rouges-d o-it-from-behind.html
I realize that there's a lot more to a media center pc than Tivo, but come on now.
You can pick up a TV for a couple of hundred bucks, or build a Myth system that works for less than half the cost of an equivalent media center pc, without getting so locked into a single vendor for any service.
Having a cable card inside your system is nice, but is it really worth all that extra money? I don't think so.
Oh my god! Think of the children!
It amazes me year after year how people just take it from Micro$oft. And no, I am no Linux fan boy. I just don't like to see bad companies like Micro$oft time and time again screw up.
I guess it is true. Never...and I mean NEVER buy anything from Micro$oft that is version 1.0.
Vista has been D.O.A. month after month, bug after bug, spyware attack after spyware attack, slow op code after slow op code. Is it time to go Mac? (And no I am not an Apple fan boy either...I'm just so FREAKING tired of this all this bull).
Why doesn't it work? DRM? Unimplemented (Vista is still a young OS)? User stupidity?
Assuming it's the first, then maybe we have something to talk about here (though not something too interesting, considering that between Youtube and Joost the writing is on the wall for cable TV).
The first assumption any right-thinking person should make with a software product interfacing with a new hardware product is that the software product is always at fault when it comes from Microsoft.
As associated axiom is that when ever anything fails, it is Microsoft's fault. For example, when a PC fails to respond to user input it is due to a problem with Microsoft software. When the secretary plugs the computer back in and the problem disappears, it must have been Microsoft that unplugged it. Obvious to all but the Microsoft-indoctrinated losers.
Could it be that this product was pushed out the door without sufficient testing with different cable cards, cable systems and all the silly things that cable companies are doing just to be different? Naa. Has to be Microsoft.
"Ha Ha"
Vista Retarded is here Sung by the V.C.P.s
[voiceover] The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.
Vista "Retarded", is here...
And content not playin' playin', not playin' playin',not playin' playin',not playin' playin', not
playin' playin', not playin' playin',not playin' playin',not playin' playin', not...
In this context,Vista disrespects, so when I click to play, the display disconnects.
We got find methods for us to reconnect to new codecs by the network effect.
Bout to lose your fair use. Microsoft's institution. Infect your computer with D.R.M. pollution.
Cause when we click on, the sound is gonna be down. You won't believe how we ow shout out.
Burn can't cause we locked out, Sample can't cause we locked out, act up from north,west, east south.
[Chorus:]
Everybody (ye-a!), everybody (ye-a!), let's get into it (Yea!).
Get stoopid (click on!).
Vista retarded (click on!), Vista retarded (click on!), get retarded.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Yeah.
Lose control, of privacy and goals.
Won't run too fast cause, bloat makes it slow.
Won't get away, your locked into it.
Y'all hear about it, Gutmann'll do it.
Get Vista, be stoopid.
Don't worry 'bout it, Ballmer'll walk you though it,
Step by step, you'll be restricted
Patch by patch with the new solution.
Transmit bits, with D.R.M. pollution
Claim the contents irresistible and that's how they move it.
[Chorus:]
Everybody (ye-a!), everybody (ye-a!), let's get into it (Yea!).
Get stoopid (click on!).
Vista retarded (click on!), Vista retarded (click on!), get retarded.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Yeah.
Playin' playin', not playin' playin',not playin' playin',not playin' playin', not...
C'mon y'all, let's get Do-do! (uh huh) -- Let's get Do-do! (in here)
Right now get Do-do! (uh huh) -- Let's get Do-do! (in here)
Right now get Do-do! (uh huh) -- Let's get Do-do! (in here) Ow, ow, ow!
Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya...
Let's get ill, that's the deal .
At the gate, Microsoft restricts your will. (Just)
Lose your mind this is the time,
Y'all test this will, Just and download still. (Just)
Rob the resolution, from your monitor or to your speakers.
Get pixel-ated and suck.
Yo' movies past slow-mo' in another head trip.(So)
Locked in now cannot correct it, so be ig'nant and left apoplectic
[Chorus:]
(yeah)Everybody, (yeah) everybody, (yeah) get locked into it.
(yeah) Get stupid.
(click on) Get retarded,(click on) get retarded (yeah), get retarded.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Whoaoa
Yeah.
You Cukoo! (A-ha!) -- It's Po-Po! (is here)
Be a Fool! (A-ha!) -- M.S. Tool! (be their)
Like Voodoo! (A-ha!) -- You cukoo! (out here)
Ow, ow!
Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya...
Playin' playin', not playin' playin',not playin' playin',not playin' playin'
[fade]
With the HDHomeRun you can watch/record the unencrypted channels on digital cable:n
. shtml?tid=117&tid=39
http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/products/hdhomeru
Two tuners and plugs into your Ethernet network. You can watch content from any computer on your network.
Works with MCE 2005 and Vista MCE - both 32 and 64-bit versions.
Works with SageTV, BeyondTV, etc.
Works with MythTV under Linux.
Mac support is rumored to be coming soon.
Linux review:
http://servers.linux.com/servers/07/04/18/1531247
It works fine now, sorry
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
Actually, it ALLOWS you to view shows on your computer. It's a spec for doing away with set top boxes and the like. With a Cable Card ready TV, you wouldn't need a set top box, you just plug the card into the TV. They also work with computers and other equipment. Try the Cable Card wiki page for more info.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
the card have DRM that only works with windows vista on oem systems that pay m$ for the right to use the cards.
also how do they lock them down to the oems only?
what happen if you put non dell ram, video card, or other things in to a dell system with a cable card? will that lock you out?
In every cable card article i have seen, vista, tivo3, tv's, etc the cable cards never work. The cable companies are intentionally making this a broken technology. Its not vista's fault at all.
they're little devils sent from hell!
Just so i can watch tv? Ya, isnt technology grand.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Had an ATI all-in-wonder once, mostly worked on one machine, but when I changed machines to a newer one, wouldn't work at all no matter what version of the drivers I installed. ATI is suck.
I currently have analog cable and a digitizer card in a homebrew linux-based PVR box. Obviously it would be better to get digital cable or satellite and directly record the digital signal instead of re-compressing it, but I am confused as to whether this is possible. Never? Only for over-the-airways digital broadcasts? Only when using a cable-company-provided PVR? Only when using a DRM-compliant card that only works under Windows?
If I got digital cable or satellite, presumably I could still decode programming to analog and re-compress it using my current setup, right? Except the tuner onboard the compressor card would no longer work because digital doesn't need a tuner. Then how would my homebrew PVR select a channel for recording, and could I still watch a TV channel live?
The media companies are deathly afraid of us "stealing" "their" product.
Microsoft is sooo eager to lock everyone else out of the business that they climb into bed with these same media companies and create something that restricts the hell out of usage.
and restrict they do. Sooo much that it doesn't even work!
Now, the media companies would like to continue selling; Microsoft would like to be THE home entertainment system. Why in the hell aren't they working any harder than this to make the experience any better than this? Because they know it doesn't make any difference? Because they know theyhave already rigged the game so that no one else can even do the job, let alone do it better? And this is good for America and the world... WHY?
The problems with these systems have nothing to do with the consumer-experience-enhancing DRM software installed in Vista. We will sue anybody who says otherwise.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Cable cards are horribly problematic. They were forced upon the cable companies and if you need one it means you're not renting equipment from the cable company. They really don't give a shit if it's a pain in your ass, because it lets them say "well, our cable-box/DVR/whatever never has these problems".
In three months, I've had 5 or 6 different cable cards in my Series 3 Tivo. Only one has worked the whole time (it's got a dual-tuner, so it needs two). Some never worked at all; others refused to unlock the premium channels I'm paying for; still others have been fine for a few weeks then suddenly stopped working.
For once I'm willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt and assume that the problem is Comcast and the crappy cable cards their cartel has concocted.
I'm glad you posted this here. The link between Windows Vista Media Center Edition, the ATi TV Wonder card, and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan has gone unremarked for far too long.
I've had very few problems with two Cablecards in my Tivo Series 3. The one time a Tivo upgrade caused a problem, I called Comcast and they sent the appropriate signals down the wire to re-enable the cards again. I'm not a big fan of Comcast, but in my area, they've been handling Cablecards very well.
It doesn't work at all.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I bought a Cable Card-ready Sony TV a few years ago with the idea that I would rent a Cable Card from Time Warner Cable so I could watch HD channels. Once the Time Warner Cable installation tech got the Cable Card working in my TV, he bolted out the door. About six hours later, the picture turned black and I could no longer receive encrypted channels. When I called Time Warner Cable's support, the support person first sent a "reset" to my TV but that didn't work. Then I was advised to turn the TV off and then unplug the set from the power outlet for ten minutes. That didn't fix the problem.
I had Time Warner Cables techs come to my house a few more times with replacement Cable Cards but they could never resolve the problem. They gave up and blamed the problem on my TV. They said the TV needed a firmware upgrade (I didn't even know my TV had upgradeable firmware!). I contacted a local home theater company and they sent one of their techs to my house to upgrade my TV's firmware.
After that upgrade, Time Warner Cable tried again but could not get the Cable Card to work. The TWC person at my house was on the phone with someone at the "head end" trying to get advice on how to fix this problem. Despite digging through some very cool diagnostic screens on my TV and trying every option available, Time Warner Cable never did the Cable Card to work in my TV.
I gave up and called TWC to let them know I would be bringing their card back.
For all of its hype, Cable Card definitely sucked donkey balls. I have a very nice Sony HD set that is supposedly "Cable Card ready" but the Cable Card just didn't work reliably. It's too bad. The time that I did get to watch channels like Discovery HD was very cool.
That was a couple of summers ago. I haven't had the time to see if TWC here in Milwaukee has figured-out the mysteries of the Cable Card.
The cable companies are holding back the htpc market.
Rouges do it from behind.
They have gone to great lengths to prevent direct digital stream ripping of "premium" content. There are a number of ways to get a direct stream of non-premium content.
You could get an HDHomeRun. These are very nice little boxes that output a direct stream via ethernet. They can recieve both digital cable, and over-the-air digital broadcasts. They cannot decrypt premium content.
Another avenue of getting a direct stream is firewire. Your cable company can give you (FCC mandated!) a cable box that outputs the digital stream to your pc via firewire. You can normally even use this interface to change channels. Of course, when watching any premium content, firewire is disabled.
There are CableCard TV tuners for PC's as mentioned in this article. They can both receive AND decrypt digital cable. They will not work in anything but Vista (if at all), and the software is designed to allow you to view, but not record premium digital content.
So, you can upgrade to a digital tuner, and rip the streams directly to your HD, but you are not going to be able to record much that makes it worthwhile (Unless you're a sports fan). The best bet for getting ALL channels on your PC is still the analog hole. Yes, you're stuck re-encoding the video, but most capture cards do a great job of this. HD can be a bit tough to do, but it can be done.
As far as changing channels on your cable box, google up "IR blaster". Allows your PC to be a universal remote control.
It looks like for not too much money you could make a box that can record 1080i/720p via component cables and solve this whole problem. At least until analog is completely outlawed.
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
Could it be that this product was pushed out the door without sufficient testing with different cable cards, cable systems and all the silly things that cable companies are doing just to be different? Naa. Has to be Microsoft.
It WAS NOT THE CARDS. They were tested before they left the shop and tested AOK.
Did you read the fine hands free phone conversation between the M$ tech and the cable guy? We can count the ways they lie to everyone. First, they sent a ringer - an experienced tech with inside contacts at M$ but they forgot to tell that inside contact in advance. Let's quote the fun that follows:
Translation: We lie to reviewers and send them out special equipment so that everyone gets a more favorable impression than they will if they actually buy the product.
Translation: They don't work but we are going to sell them anyway. The first tech wisely wants nothing further to do with this call and pushes it up to a second, who was not there, and third person you and I would never get to talk to, even if we spend $7,000 on a maximum rippoff, hi-death Tivo. The embarrassment mounts as two of them sit broken.
Things only go downhill from there. One of the cards had been "qualified" by the beast but neither worked. The tech devolves into typing "Microsoft-proprietary information" on a command line, a command so complex it had to be emailed but could not be shared with customer. After four hours, the tech gives up. The next day does not go much better.
Still, this represents a best case scenerio. How many of us will get a M$ or vendor Product Manager's email to make this thing work?
An bonus funny was the secret command:
c:/windows/ehome/ehribjob.exe \OCURNregister
Is this guy a Linux user or what?
Oh how I love Vista and digital restrictions. It does not get any worse than this.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
MIA covered this problem from a different angle. Rouges do it from behind.
you should try it again, you should get superior picture by it going directly to the TV instead of having to pass the signal through another box.
I guess I'll stick with analog.
With the recent improvements to graphics cards, computers have now got enough power for the next level of PVR to become possible.
I refer of course to Personal Video Rendering, ie locally generated real-time TV. Even modest AI can handle the retarded talk shows and formulaic sycophantic interviews.
Just imagine: you can watch computer generated random pointless drivel such as 'my boyfriend left me for a transexual limbo dancer and now i am marrying his mother' with 5.1 surround whooping and hollering from the audience for as long as you like (with artificial repetitive and annoying 'advertisement' breaks, of course), then decide to watch a blu-ray hd film. The software would automatically flip to rendering 20 minutes of a sports game, followed by 30 minutes of tedious analysis by virtual sports presenters before showing the film. Artificially intelligent filtering would then cut many of the scenes and redub profane dialog no matter what time it was being watched. Monitoring daemons would flag the kind of shows that you like to watch and then 'cancel' them.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
I'll bet they feel VERY happy with themselves now that their content is so well protected that no one can use it.
Say it ain't so!
You need to say that with $7,000 worth of passion and conviction. The reviewer was sitting on d=\$14,000.00/=b but few fanboys are going to buy two of these things.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Yes, it seems you are somewhat missing what is happening.
So, right now, you have analog cable with an analog tuner feeding your Media Center. Great.
Now, what is happening is that the HD revolution is coming. So, instead of your crappy, noisy analog cable, you can access digital channels on the same cable. Those channels can have higher resolution or at least better signal. They are encoded in mpeg2 and wrapped in a QAM signal (different than the ATSC standard for over the air HDTV). Today, you can access the same channels (or even more) than the ones in your basic cable with a QAM tuner, BUT, as soon as you want any of the premium channel (discovery HD, espn HD, HBO...), you will need a set-top box. Why? Because those channels are encrypted to avoid you getting signals you did not pay your local cable company for.
So, to avoid those set top boxes, the cable cards have been designed: they are small cards you can plug in your TV/PC/DVR/Media center that would allow you to decrypt those channels with a key corresponding to your account (so, allowing to decrypt the channels you pay for). Tivo has it and now Vista has it with some ATI cable card tuner. The problem is that cable card is pretty much hit or miss, so all the computer based DVR/Media Center will NOT be able to access the full line-up of HD programming, that you pay for it or not.
Sure, you could go through the "analog hole", however, there is no easy way to digitize a 720p/1080i/1080p signal, so you are back to SD resolutions.
In short, if you want to use a homebrew PVR, you are srewed and limited to over the air HD or non-encrypted QAM channels...
The Auckland Uni server is currently down, so here is a google cache link:
A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
It sounded nice, though. :-(
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
blame them all. They're all out to give you fewer options.
1. Microsoft has drunk this DTV Cool-aid in the hope that this legally sanctioned lockout will finally bury any OS competition, well at least in the living room (they're right. No DTV means everyone else is pushed out)
2. Cable operators want to run your living room like cell carriers want to own your phones. If there's profit to be had, they want it to flow through their pockets or nobody else's. So even if this media PC thing flops, they're not out at all since 'most people' will just overpay for the vendor lock-in machines overprices since they're the only show in town.
My personal story of this issue
I like to think that I LOVE media and I'm probably a nice juicy target for such gadgetry. I've got hundreds of DVD's (legal) and I appreciate spending my money on what I like.
I live up in BC where the sole cable-co is Shaw. I was introduced to Digital TV a few years back when they rented out the boxes for pretty cheap (this was before HD content so the box didn't support it). A couple years later I start seeing that they were going to be broadcasting HD content. I was like: Wow, thats great. I could get an HTPC to do some DVR and the world will be my oyster. How poorly things turn out.
As it turned out, there weren't too many options for me after all. There was a $450 HD receiver that has firewire, but since practically HD all channels have nocopy, I couldn't actually use it as a part of a HDPC/DVR. For $450 it would cost too much to simply watch maybe 10 HD channels. They also released a DVR version of the system. $750. F* you, everyone one of you. I refuse to pay that much for a piece of equipment that can't interoperate with anything or even choose competing product. You get Shaw branded Motorola's or shaw branded Motorola's Wow. thanks, but no thanks.
So after really really wanting to break down and pay the outrageous price just for the tuners (ignoring for the moment how much the actual content would cost), I just decided to drop the whole cable TV thing all together. Instead, for the shrinking number of shows I actually want to watch, I download them illegally. Thanks to all your greed, you've forced me to become a white collar criminal. Bastards!
Bye!
To everyone who complains about the command being in the wrong syntax (C:/ehome/ versus C:\ehome\)
/windows/system32
Go to your command line. Start>Run>CMD
> cd \
> cd
See where you end up.
Now, try
> c:/windows/system32/dxdiag.exe
Windows CLI takes paths in both formats.
Do you know why the 2nd M$ guy would not allow this command to be emailed to the writer, but to the cable guy's account on the writer's computer?
c:/windows/ehome/ehribjob.exe \OCURNregister
He complained it was "Microsoft-proprietary information" which makes me laugh. I'll tell you why it's a secret. The sender is a Linux user and does not want his boss to know.
Chairs are going to fly over this cock-up.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Perhaps someone out there can answer this for me, but what is to stop some company in China, or Europe, or somewhere else where US laws apply in name only (i.e. there is some trade agreement or treaty on 'intellectual property' but the foreign producers simply ignore it when it is inconvenient) from producing and selling third party hardware which does not recognize a 'broadcast flag' or any other junk that the government and the cable monopoly lobbyists come up with?
What about the regular digital channels, is there a way to dump them without the analog hole? I mean Toon Disney, VH1 Classic, etc.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
In short, if you want to use a homebrew PVR, you are srewed and limited to over the air HD or non-encrypted QAM channels...
Is the encryption for the premium channels on a per subscriber basis, each subscriber has a different key and separate digital cable data stream sent to their house with the channels they paid for encrypted with their key OR are the encrypted channels broadcast in common with a common key for all of the subscribers in the neighborhood who paid for the premium stuff? If it is the later and not the former then it might be possible to reverse engineer the decoder box and decode the channels for free (open source hardware! learn to solder and read circuit diagrams!) (like people do with satellite equipment). It would be interesting to know which.
Or ATI's. It's the cable company. I'd bet quite a large sum of money on that statement.
Go read some Tivo forums that cover the Series 3 unit. There is story after story after story about the nightmare of getting cablecards installed and configured properly.
Cablecards are standardized. The device itself (provided it is compliant with the CableLabs standard (which it MUST BE to be certified)) is irrelevant. All the installer needs to do is know how to bring up the cablecard info screen and speak enough English to read a few numbers to a person at the other end of the phone. The person on the other end of the phone needs to enter those numbers correctly and provision the card properly. (Meaning they have to enter the card's ID number properly, enter the device's ID number correctly, and authorize that matched pair to access whatever content the subscriber is allowed to view.)
It doesn't matter if the device is a television, set-top box, DVR, computer, etc. Totally irrelevant. The only unique part of this process is getting the device ID from the subscriber's device. That is all the specialized training an "installer" needs to accomplish the installation. The person entering this information on the other end of the line doesn't even need that tiny little bit of specialized training. They're doing money-work. Enter the numbers, assign the content privileges, click ok.
It's astonishing how many ways the cable company can find to fuck (can I say fuck here?) up this simple process.
Why wouldn't they train their people properly? Simple. They can get $2-3/month for a cablecard rental. They get $10-15/month for a DVR or STB. While, technically, they do support cablecards (as required by FCC mandate), they intentionally make the process as painful as possible so people will give up on cablecards and tell their friends how horrible cablecards are. "Never buy anything that uses a cablecard. They don't work."
you should try it again, you should get superior picture by it going directly to the TV instead of having to pass the signal through another box.
If your using a DVI or HDMI cable, this simply is not true. When using these cables, you get an uncompressed video feed from the box. In fact, I've often found the cable box to provide BETTER video output than the card. For some reason, the MPEG decoder chips built into these TVs sucks ass. Or at least that was the case with first generation cable card ready TVs.
Life is not for the lazy.
It is a well written piece. I particularly like:
"ATI had to restrict the availability of OCUR cards (now known as the TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner) to OEM PC manufacturers."
Nah - too wordy. Let's tighten that baby up a bit.
"ATI restricted OCURs ( aka: TVWDCTs) to OEM PCMs."
Ah - now it's readable!
The best bet for getting ALL channels on your PC is still the analog hole.
The analog hole (at least for the premium channels) is going the way of the dodo in the not to distant future when they cut off analog broadcasts and begin transitioning people to HDTV with all of those set top boxes (for those who don't know or care what HDTV is or just want to keep their coax television and have it work). Once the transition has begun the cable monopolies will move rapidly to reduce the number of channels that their set top box will output to their legacy analog television customers both to push people into buying more premium packages and reclaim the ground they lost starting in the late 1970s with the widespread introduction of the VCR and continuing on to this day with recordable DVD, SVCD, DVRs, etc...This will also push people into buying new digital HDTV television sets and complete the unholy alliance of closed DRM format with end-to-end hardware control (no analog holes). So yeah, you may still have your analog Linux DVR, but there will be no more analog cable content (that is worth a crap) to record.
...summary is that we shouldn't necessarily have to "RTFA." Jokes aside, a well-written paragraph can concisely summarize almost any topic, certainly any covered on Slashdot. Had the summary included a sentence or two out of your comment even it would be a notable improvement.
What about the regular digital channels, is there a way to dump them without the analog hole? I mean Toon Disney, VH1 Classic, etc.
Anything beyond basic cable is premium and hence encrypted (as you are not supposed to have it without paying).
Cable is a shared media. The data is basically broadcast to the whole neighborhood at the same time, so I would think that the key is shared too.
So far, even the Pay Per View, which could benefit of unique keys, does not use it. They just use common unused channels and broadcast in the clear. The others in your neighborhood just dont know know when and what (and set top boxes cant tune automatically on those channels), but with a QAM tuner, you can see those streams in clear (although the person paying for it can fast forward, rewind or pause at will, not you), you just dont know what the program is, when it will be ordered or if the suscriber will finish it...
So, basically, with a concerted effort of hackers, it could be possible to get some keys...
I wouldn't be surprised if the cable company itself could not reset them and they had to be sent back to the supplier to maximize DRM protection.
It makes you wonder whether the "flakiness" reputation actually originated from people performing such testing.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
There! That's thrice I've said it... Now sue me! Or at least throw some chairs in my direction. I could use some firewood, I just ran out of Microsoft® marketing pamphlets.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Ugly, ugly technology.
Its probably a combination between how buggy Windows MCE(like all MS products but MCE is at ME level) and that ATI couldn't write stable drivers if there life depended on it(o wait it does and thats why the enthusiast market is all NVIDIA). Once pcHDTV releases a card with CableCard support I bet it will work flawlessly and be very simple to setup.
Last week. Ever actually called microsoft support and pushed the right numbers? i'm guessing the phone is complex for you. Some sweet lady who understood me better than understand myself gave me a hotfix right off the bat. o yeah and emailed it to me!!
Btw i have mega msdn liscenses and she didn't even bother wanting the numbers for, "we'll get that right to you". Call apple if you want to compare.
Talk about what you know about. Tv set-top boxes are still complex were talking apples and oranges. Thank god they even try, its a nice sorta kinda feature.
Glad I didn't waste my time and money buying a paperweight (ie. Microsoft Media Center) since I enjoy watching HD/digital cable with my TiVo S3 via 2 totally functional CableCards (functional from the moment they were installed 7 months ago, no glitches, no BSOD's, no viruses, no spyware, no worms). Heck, my S3 has Linux inside so you know it's going to rock. With TiVo's current $200 rebate you can own one too-- and you really should.
Yeah, I know, you don't care...
Now can someone name one (1) show that it's worth going to all this trouble to record?
I can't think of a show in the last 5 years that I have been the slightest bit bummed out about missing.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Either A) dont go out of your way to buy products known to have issues with linux, or maybe check first B) use ubuntu
That they were tested before they left the shop is why they didn't work in the field! You can't just move a CableCard from one device to another. ... It makes you wonder whether the "flakiness" reputation actually originated from people performing such testing
First they did not test enough, now someone tells me the test itself broke the card. It's this kind of run around that makes me happy I don't waste money on non free software.
I'm sure the cable people did exactly as they were instructed and the conversation points back to M$. Both M$ techs and product managers know they have problems with all of these cards. That tells me that there's a problem with the consumer side software or the implementation itself. It's unlikely everyone else screwed up. One of the cards had even been "qualified," whatever that means, by M$ themselves.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
None of that matters to me. The few shows I actually watch on TV, I can either get from their website as streaming video or through BitTorrent if the network doesn't stream that show. I'm not that much into TV tech so watching on my computer monitor is good enough for me. Call me a Luddite, but I don't need no stinkin' HD picture.
Is there really a way for tconsumers to use the analog hole for HD? The only way I know to do this is using professional HD-SDI equipment (for thousands of dollars.) Consumer or prosumer devices to do that are nowhere to be found. I was under the impression that is no coincidence, that any company attempting to market such a device would be sued.
this is probably (part) of the problem
...since it has the actual reason the cards didn't work rather than more twitter...
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Its time the cable companies share-holders sat up and took notice. I'm already downloading and watching HDTV content using my XBox 360 (again, VGA cable, no HDCP), and I'm looking into how to do the same on my PC. In fact I'm getting pretty close to just killing off all my TV and just using the cable for its cable modem. And if they start throttling it, I'll switch to DSL, or hell, my cell phone gets about 1Mb.
I am exactly their target market, but they are actively driving me to their competitors. What the hell happened to this country?
The problem (that a few people have realized) is that the technician tested the cards first. Because of this operation they were inseperably paired with the device used to test them.
Without knowing that and resetting this pairing nothing that could be done would force the cards to work in the PC. It has nothing to do with the new hardware, the operating system or anything else. Simple matter is these are complex devices interfacing with even more complex systems. And the supposedly knowledgeable technician didn't understand this restriction.
Unfortunately, the article makes it appear that the technician was knowlegeable and should have been able to solve the problem. In reality the inexperienced technican created the problem and insured the installation would fail by testing the cards.
Doh!
Failed business models are dime-a-dozen and taught at business grad schools, specifically course MANU555 (Designing Flexible High-Tech Consumer Product).
Basic Tenets:
Rigid product = High Returns.
Failed Head-Ends = Massive Modem Recall
DRM = Excessive Customer Support = Loss of Interest
No kidding. Some COMCAST/MS product research department personnel needs to go back to school. We, Slashdotter, would have design this better.
I had to respond to this
/etc/apt/apt.conf (replace oldstable with your preferred version name)
/etc/apt/sources.list (replace unstable with needed version name)
/running mixed testing/unstable for years now //works like a charm
If your program needs newer libraries than your preffered distro version:
add
APT:Default-Release "oldstable"
to
add
http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
to
root@localhost:~# apt-get update install mynewprogram
This will only pull in packages from unstable if you depend on a version newer than oldstable.
see apt manual for details
For those who don't know, this is equivalent to automatically pulling DLL's from WinXP onto a '98 box to make an XP only program work. Try that in MS Windows if you are any good.
and
Remember, that's Microsoft-proprietary!
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
This was an unadvertised change in service from what was contracted with for the 5+ years of Adelphia service. In addition, TW/RR did not offer the same level of service (home wireless router) that Adelphia always had although they later decided to provide it for an additional fee.
TW/RR "never let you down"?? You were LUCKYAnd ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32(King James Version)
The firmware disable recording when protected content is detected. (Check the fine print)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The firewire method is REALLY buggy within windows media center, and the main guy working on it hasn't been around in months, so that project is dead, at least for having it within media center. You can manually record programs pretty reliably of over firewire I've found, but thats just in a standalone program with no guide, you just hit start and the length of time to record. It will record whatever channel the digital box is on. It seems I can record my HD channels, including Discovery channel, which is nice, but for the hassle, I prefer to just record it on the analog tuners from within vista mce, in standard def.
Ah, you poor bastards in the US...
I have cogeco cable here in canada, and NONE of the channels, regular, HD or PPV/Premium have the Record-blocking Flag enabled. Also, for the record the Motorola DCT-6412 I have has 2 firewire ports and I assure you i can use both to record to 2 different computers at the same time.
Technicians can test cards all the want before bringing them to the customer site.
The bonding actually occurs at the head end, not in the card.
They have to call up and give the head end reps the device ID and card ID so that the system can start transmitting the correct key stream with which the card will be able to decrypt and use to get at the symmetric content keys.
The cards themselves can be tested in a sandbox environment where the technician can control the encryption process, registration in the sandbox, and then verify the decryption.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Every MS program I've seen errors when you try to use backslashes as switch prefixes. Some accept hyphens instead of forward slashes, but all of them think you mean UNC paths when you use a backslash.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I'm the "product manager" Michael Brown is speaking of. Actually, my title is Director of Product Development. My name is Chris Morley. My email is readily available as am I - I've been assisting customers as needed with this product. =)
OTA HD content can still be recorded freely on MythTV, and that is just as good for people living near the transmission towers, in fact in some cases it may even be better than the Cable Company's version of your local HD channels, which has more compression than OTA ATSC (8VSB) if it is using QAM 256. Besides most people are realizing that fewer and fewer good shows are on these days anyway. I'm still confident that somebody somewhere will figure out how to get Cable Cards working with Linux for recording "premium" content. But that won't happen until somebody can figure it out for Vista first... you know the OS that it was designed to "work" with since it has the most DRM. Frankly I haven't heard too many success stories for Cable Cards in general, never mind getting them to play nice with Vista. Personally I think the whole CableCard thing could have been great, but it really is just a joke, since the Cable Companies have no real obligation to them except to provide half-assed attempts to get it working for you. They have little incentive to sell it to you, because it means that you won't buy any ON DEMAND garbage from them ever, since Cable Card (current version) is a one way connection and is not interactive for ON DEMAND purchasing. I guess they don't care that most people hate set top boxes, because in the end they have a chance of making more money from you off of it (in addition to equipment rental fees etc.) And in the end isn't it always about the money and just let the consumer choice be damned? Well if consumers continue to stay uneducated about CableCard then they really will fail, and you'll be trapped into the set top box scam and extra fees forever!
Yeah, well, that will reduce the viewership and eventually someone will realize that there are millions of people out there who are not watching TV at all, recognize the market and serve them, making the DRM pendulum swing back.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
According to this article the cable companies have to make cable cards work, because starting July 1st all new cable boxes they give to customers have to use the same cable cards to decode video that they give out for uses like this.
You're like Paris Hilton. No one cares about you or what you "stand for", but you're on every fucking channel, and you're incredibly annoying.
This looks like a job for... a keylogger or screen recorder.
Wow, this whole thread makes me want to go out and buy an Apple TV.
Why are people so quick to blame MS when they have NO evidence to back up that claim. When you make a claim no matter who or what it is, back it up with some evidence. Blanket statements based on no evident or proven facts just don't cut it. Before it even got out the door this tuner had bugs and they stopped shipping this once: http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/ati-stops-shipp ing-cablecard-tuners-due-to-bugs-will-resume-soo/
"This is all about denying the customer the ability to watch TV through anything other than a cable co device, it's just paying lip service to the law so that they're not obviously in violation of it. This will only get worse too once switched video gets deployed."
*psst!* Hey bud! Guess what? None of this affects me. I don't have cable or satellite. I get OTA but watch very little of it. I buy used DVDs/CDs, and not very many at that. Isn't it nice not being addicted to entertainment? It's amazing how many "problems" disappear? You all should give it a try. You'll live longer.
Typical Slashdot Microsoft bashing.
Isn't it the cable companies, or whoever they had design the cards, who came up with the pairing thing? Complain about them, not Microsoft.
c:/windows/ehome/ehribjob.exe \OCURNregister
When I first read this, I thought someone was making a joke.
What does that stand for? "E-Home Return on Investment 'bjob?'"
Is corporate fellatio now a command line process?
--
Toro
WTF?
bug after bugSo no Linux distro has bugs? Your beloved Mac doesn't have bugs? Haven't there been around 30 Mac patches in the last 2 months?
spyware attack after spyware attackName ONE spyware attack that is Vista only. ONE.
slow op code after slow op codeThat's right, you can't.
I can, however, say that most spyware, viruses, trojans, and rootkits, have their functionality retarded due to UAC.
The perceived "slowness" of Vista is a product of immature drivers, one bug that affects some computers (slow file copy) and pure FUD.
I'm just so FREAKING tired of this all this bullIndeed. I'm freaking tired of all the bull in your post as well.
Isn't there some way I could subscribe to Canadian satellite TV and do the same?
That's not true.
They let you record everything (sans things marked no record, which is next to nothing, and is the same with analog). They also encrypt *everything*, even the non-premium stuff, when using a cable card. This is law laid down by cable labs, not Microsoft. You can blame Microsoft for caving, but really they had no leg to stand on - if they didn't do it this way then cable wouldn't agree to them doing it at all.
Cable companies hate cable card. It takes away their control over the recieving device. They are doing everything they can possibly get away with to prevent cable card from succeeding. Thus far in my observations of Sattelite they are not behaving in the same way and if we're lucky the more open attitude of the sattelite companies will eventually serve as leverage forcing the cable companies to open up.
Someone's computer doesn't work right-
How is this news?
-Bryan
I'm a Fedora fan and use it on my laptop and my desktop, however dual-boot Windows Vista on my desktop for work, as I need to know all there is to know about the latest and greatest and I can say with confidence that Vista isn't as bad as it's made out to be. I'm a power user and every program I require works, as does every game, nothing crashes and the OS is stable (has not crashed in 3 months of solid use) Also, nothing is more of a pain in the arse than linux. Fedora Core 3 for example, took 3 hours to get my intel ipw3945 wireless workign on my laptop. Windows, 35 seconds. Windows Media Center with supported Happauge TV device, 3 minutes. MythTV, countless hours. This fault of Vista is something us linux users fight all the time. The software is incomplete, incompatible, unpredictable and just generally a pain in the arse. The free aspect coupled with my desire to conquer these challenges is the only reason I bother using linux. Windows is superior in it's user-friendly everything. Set you prejudices aside for 5 minutes and stop being juvenile. Nothing in any software is ever perfect. Not in Microsoft and CERTAINLY not in ANY linux distro I *am* a linux guy. Like it or not, all of this is the truth. There is little-to-know room for argument here.
Jesus Twitter at least get a clue. Some of your rants are entertaining, but the ones so deeply drawn from ignorance are just sad.
CABLECARDS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH MICROSOFT. MS didnt invent them. MS has nothing to do with the fact that Cablecards become married to a single piece of hardware. It's a rediculous restriction, and yes CableCard is a very shitty and broken technology, but it has nothing to do with MS, AT ALL.
Cablecards were forced on cable providers by the FCC. They are supposed to be a standard by which any hardware can recieve digital cable without the need for a set-top box. My big-screen TV has a Cablecard slot. If some idiot tech married the card to a test machine and then brought it to my house and found out it didnt work, should I start blaming MS too?
It did prove one thing quite clearly: you might me able to get it working the first time, but forget about upgrading your MMPC and keep using the same card in a few years time.
And the process of "divorce" should be a 5 minute call to your cable provider with clear instruction on how to do it given right there on screen in MCE. (ie: "call number 555-1234567, give them number A0FEA7D322 and type in the number they give you in return")
On the mac you can use utilities supplied with the free firewire SDK to record unencoded mpeg transport streams from your cable box (for me this includes the PBS HD stations). Alternatively, use the free program iRecord to schedule recordings and change channels. All you need is a firewire cable. Apps such as VLC and MPlayer can play back the recorded video.
Come on now, how do you know it didn't fall off the back of the courier's lorry?
The concept of it 'getting married' to a testcard is ridiculous.
"Now, type this command in"
'c:/windows/ehome/ehribjob.exe \OCURNregister'
"MSG2: I can't send this to the customer! This is Microsoft-proprietary information. Don't you have an email account?"
davecb5620@gmail.com
No self respecting free software advocate would call themselves a "Microsoft-hater" or a "zealot".
Incorrect. CableCards are paired with the customer device, but they can be unpaired at the head-end. It would be pretty retarded of the cable companies to offer CableCards for devices that can never be reused.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Stupid little troll, that's certainly not true.
Wow, this guy was working really hard to make MS look bad:
>Now anyone who's ever typed a DOS command will immediately realize that this
>command isn't going to work-the cable tech certainly did-because Microsoft Guy
>Number 2 has used forward slashes
Meanwhile using forward slashes works perfectly fine in the Vista command prompt for me.
Er, 8VSB and 256QAM have no relationship to compression - they're just ways to get a digital signal from point A to point B, via air or cable, in a reasonably reliable fashion. Both still employ MPEG-2 encoding for the video and Dolby Digital for audio, wrapped in an MPEG-2 transport stream mux/encap format. Admittedly, some cable companies do recompress the signals before sending them over cable, but that's not always the case.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Well, at least until 2009.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
drmed right out of luck.
Isn't it the cable companies, or whoever they had design the cards, who came up with the pairing thing? Complain about them, not Microsoft.
Those cards seem to work in their set top boxes. Rather than see a conspiracy of two companies to thwart M$, I see a broken PC and see broken M$ software.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
CableCards are paired with the customer device, but they can be unpaired at the head-end. It would be pretty retarded of the cable companies to offer CableCards for devices that can never be reused.
That and the fact that the cable company's boxes work with the same cards. The problem is pretty obviously a PC that M$ broke.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It says that you have less control over what you do with your hardware, and that there are bound to be a lot of consumer headaches over garbage like this.
You actually don't have a damn clue how these work, do you? Instead of reading the comments that tell you how they work and why they didn't, you're still clinging to your pathetic "MS sucks" Linus blanket and pouting.
Grow up.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
And now you know (if you didn't before) one of the myriad reasons people have been complaining about Treacherous Computing -- because that's what's enabling this kind of bullshit.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No, that won't happen. You know why? Because serving that market would be ILLEGAL because of the DMCA!
The only ways to stop this are political.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
...yet.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I have learned a bit about this from the cable cards in my TiVo series 3. I could be wrong, but the number of problems I have had and the diagnostics screens provide some insight
The keys are transmitted to each cable card individually, but a channel uses the same keys across the node. They are however rotated frequently.
Nah, everything but HBO/Cinemax/Starz and VOD should be available through the Firewire feed. Most of the time if the "do not record" flag is set on anything other than those channels it is a mistake and contacting the right person at the cable company can get it fixed. The biggest problem right now AFAIK is getting a driver for most of the Firewire ports, there's some talk on avsforum about getting various models working, but many of the most widely deployed boxes do not have a working driver.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Please note, I'm not an M$ fanboy, I have a few years of *nix experience and just really do not like it. To each his own I guess?
Kickass Cheap Web Hosting
You actually don't have a damn clue how these work, do you? Instead of reading the comments that tell you how they work and why they didn't, you're still clinging to your pathetic "MS sucks" Linus blanket and pouting.
Grow up.
Looking at your posting history, it would be easy to accuse you of being a Microsoft shill. However, I think that is rather too kind. Apart from anything else, it implies that you are being paid to defend them at every opportunity.
I don't think you are gaining any reward at all for the time you spend posting. I think you're doing it for the love of a multi billion dollar company that doesn't even know you exist. In fact I very much doubt that they would piss on you if you were on fire.
Perhaps you could branch out a bit and spend some of your time writing in support of other companies that need it? You know, AT&T, IBM, Pfizer or the market leader of your choice.
Maybe it's an American thing to try and defend the overdog against perceived slights from others. To me it will always seem like a pathetic waste of time and a manifestation of a psychology that I will never truly understand and probably don't want to.
Please feel free to set me right about your motivations, if you can spare a few moments between searching the web for people using "M$" instead of their properly registered trademark.
Sometimes I post to blatantly troll Erris/twitter into a zealot-y rage, but that's for amusement more than anything else. Perhaps you could branch out a bit and spend some of your time writing in support of other companies that need it? You know, AT&T, IBM, Pfizer or the market leader of your choice. I don't know enough about them to comment, so I don't, other than that IBM has a reputation for supporting open source and are usually the ones I see opposing Microsoft, usually using the same tactics as they do. Maybe it's an American thing to try and defend the overdog against perceived slights from others. To me it will always seem like a pathetic waste of time and a manifestation of a psychology that I will never truly understand and probably don't want to. This makes me laugh, because I'm British. It basically sums up your entire post - you don't know shit about me, so I don't know why you wasted your time writing this at all. Please feel free to set me right about your motivations, if you can spare a few moments between searching the web for people using "M$" instead of their properly registered trademark. I hope you feel more educated now. Feel free to come back when you can spare a few moments from talking out of your arse about something you don't know about, hmm?
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
64QAM vs. 256QAM makes no difference. Both transmit, bit-for-bit, exactly what they received from the content provider. It's DISH and DirecTV that re-encode the signal to MPEG-4. As for cable rebroadcast of OTA digital TV, they are required to broadcast them exactly as they receive them, without any modification -- that also means they cannot be encrypted, thus they are available without a cablecard.
Actually, the cablecard interface is very well documented, and PUBLIC. The only thing prevent any random person from creating their own PVR is the availability of hardware -- that nifty ATI card is only available to OEM's -- coupled with cableco's refusing to put a cablecard in non-certified hardware. Look at how that played out for linux and DVD playback...
Possible? Yes. Legally? No. There's currently 4 sources for digital programming... OTA, cable, DISH, and DirecTV.
:-))
OTA is trivial to deal with, but of course, there's very little content.
Cable is an "open system", but without a certified device, you're left with essentially the same as OTA, plus whatever unencrypted channels you can find -- which is increasingly ZERO. The FCC mandate only requires cableco's to support certified devices; they don't have to provide service to uncertified devices (and they won't, btw.)
DISH uses the world standard DVB. But, I really doubt they'll give you an access card for a system you built yourself. So, good luck decoding any of it. (assuming they still use a standard conditional access system.)
DirecTV uses their proprietary ("top secret") DSS protocol. Nobody makes receivers without a license. Their CAM is also classified. (unless you're an intern working the copy room
Each channel is encrypted with one key and broadcast across the network. That key is then encrypted individually for each cablecard entitled to decode it and broadcast across the network. The CC decodes the channel using the "master key" and then encodes it for the host using the key negotiated when the card was paired to the host. (That's why the card doesn't work when moved to another device, and why you cannot swap slots on a tivo.) This mess is intended to prevent interception of the raw data stream at any point. (of course, it's a trivial matter to "steal" it once it's on the host...)
The broadcast encryption key rotates. Quickly. Anywhere from several times per minute to several times per second. This is also supposed to discourage signal theft. And to be honest, without knowing what's inside the CC, it's an effective system. I'm betting it'll be game over in seconds once someone cracks open a CC... the industry doesn't have a good track record for these sorts of things.
In this case the goal is to break it for the end user, not for the protection. For the content providers (all of them in the chain), this is the device failing safely.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
A few years ago when you tried the Cable Card was brand new, just released, well force released by the FCC. Guess what, there were firmware updates to the TV's AND the Cards almost WEEKLY!!! Think of Windows or even Linux, do you put the first rev of either of those out in production right away, no you wait a few patch cycles until works right before releasing it for general use.
Now I know you might say this is a TV not a computer, well TV's with all the digital parts really are computers. Maybe not GigaSuperDuperFlop powerful ones, but they are basically computers.
However Evil(tm) people may feel the cable co is about this, perhaps you should place the blame on the two groups that actually released the faulty software, the TV company and the Cable Card Company. OR maybe the FCC who required the release of a product well before it was ready. I wouldn't be supprised if the issue in the article was a simmilar issue, everything is too new and just doesn't work right yet.
Now I agree that maybe if there wasn't so much DRM crap things would be simpler, and maybe, just maybe things could actually JUST WORK!!!
Those who can, do.